


King's Quality

by strawhatlucy



Category: One Piece
Genre: M/M, Mentioned Donquixote Doflamingo, Mentioned Monkey D. Luffy, One Shot, but he has an image to uphold, law after dressrosa, this is just a longass introspection of an angsty boi, who's not so angsty anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-09 01:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17397560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawhatlucy/pseuds/strawhatlucy
Summary: Law reflects back on his life before and after Luffy came in it.





	King's Quality

**Author's Note:**

> Back again! I have way too much free time XD
> 
> This has absolutely no dialogue or plot whatsoever, just Law thinking and overthinking stuff.
> 
> I wrote this because I wanted to make a comparison between Luffy and Doffy.

Thirteen years ago Law had sought out Doflamingo, a pirate famous in North Blue for his bloodthirstiness.

Back then he had been compared to that devil and he had found nothing wrong with that. Doflamingo was powerful, charismatic and promised to make Law the same.

He was also an insane madman, an egomaniac who preyed on people's weaknesses and played around with their lives and emotions.

Right now, Law is just glad to be rid of that part of his past, that his nightmare is finally over, and all of it thanks to the unassuming boy in a straw hat.

He knew from the moment he saw Straw Hat Luffy for the first time that he would be big one day. He just didn't think that day would come so soon.

He probably should have been more surprised at the turn of the events, but Law honestly couldn't be bothered. He just faced his demon and, most surprisingly, came out of it alive.

He never thought he would.

It's true that till now Law has survived on numerous occasions situations in which anyone else would have died, but that doesn't make him lucky. Not really.

Every time he lived through something someone important to him died. He got alive out of Flevance, but he also lost all he had once had; his family, friends and the life he had had before that point, and he had still been dying. 

Then he had decided to take matters into his own hands and get back at the world. He had fucked up beyond repair, even though he hadn't realized it at the time, and even then someone helped him out. They reached their hand out to him and got burned for it while Law survived yet again.

He had managed to obtain something that should have been unobtainable, escape from an inescapable island, and even cure an incurable disease.

A miracle after a goddamn miracle. He would have still traded it all for even the slightest chance at being able to save Cora-san.

It was made clear to him long ago that everyone who gets involved with him will live to regret it without fail. He still selfishly surrounded himself with other people, outcasts just like himself.

Never did he expect that just saving a bear would one day lead him to have a crew of his own, and it always followed the same pattern. Each one of his crewmates was helped by him one way or another and they all started to see him as their protector.

It was a new experience for him but Law couldn't say he didn't like it. So he swore that, without fail, he would protect them and try to be the captain they see him as. He had fucked up and gotten attached, but he could at least make sure to leave them out of the mess he  
had planned on starting.

Law never planned on surviving Dressrosa. His plan had been pretty simple actually, the true plan and not the watered down version he gave the Straw Hats; get in, mess Doflamingo's plans up, stall enough for his ally to finish the job. Then the enraged Doflamingo would realize the guillotine that was hanging over his neck and take his frustration out on Law, but Law would just laugh and spit at the bastard's face because nothing Doflamingo would do would matter, it would have been Law's victory.

There was something he overlooked though. The plan, when he had made it, had been based on generic pirates, the kind most pirates were and on whom Law could count on to leave him to his own devices once he got caught by the enemy. He hadn't accounted for the special brand of crazy the Straw Hats were. 

Straw Hat may be just as much of a madman as Doflamingo himself, for that crazy idiot did something no one else would have and saved Law, throwing all of his plans into peril, but that was just the short-term crisis Law had had to deal with. The true one came later, when he was forced to realize that he had no idea what came next, because he wasn't supposed to live through this, but he shouldn't have underestimated his own impossible luck.

Be it as it may, he was alive, and all of that thanks to the unbelievable storm his ally was. He had heard about how Straw Hat had pulled innumerable miracles our of nowhere, but the younger pirate had still managed to blindside him. 

He remembers being wary of Straw Hat back when he had first boarded his ship. He had noticed many similarities between Straw Hat and Doflamingo he could never unsee again.

They both were incredibly charismatic and drew people in. They inspired undying loyalty and found followers everywhere they went. Both of them even started out with just four people by their side and rose to their (in)fame.

Now he knows the difference. Compared to Straw Hat's effortless charm, Doflamingo's felt forced and fake. The younger pirate never tried, people just gathered around him and gave him everything they had, and he returned in kind.

Every kind word and act he repaid ten times over, he returned the loyalty offered to him and never punished disloyalty. He didn't get mad at or pay back those who scorned him, because he didn't care about what those around him thought. He was happy as long as he had his friends and nakama.

It took a long time but he sees it now and he knows the true Straw Hat Luffy, not the image presented to him through the eyes of the others.

The only things he can associate with his reckless ally now are fierce loyalty, childlike innocence and unconditional trust. He knows now that his nemesis could never compare to the pirate before him.

How he ever thought he would be able to reign in this sheer embodiment of freedom, Law couldn't even imagine anymore.

He can see it now. The future in which Straw Hat rules the seas. He has recognized him as the only King he will ever follow, the only one he will bend the knee for.

Luffy really is the man who will become the Pirate King and Law looks forward to the day the rest of the world realizes this.

**Author's Note:**

> i can't even tag relationships at this point because they're not even implied. in my one shots lawlu is always thing, they just haven't realized it yet. also, let's just say that all of these one shots i write are connected in an awfully convoluted sort of way.


End file.
